commencement of that operation, on the body of a notorious malefactor, which lay stretched out on the table before them: the surgeon, who had been placing it in a proper position, turning to the company, addressed them thus: I am pretty certain, gentlemen, from the warmth of the subject, and the flexibility of the limbs, that by a proper degree of attention and care, the vital heat would return, and life, in consequence, take place. But then, when it is considered what a rascal we should again have among us; that he was executed for having murdered a girl who was with child by him; and that, were he to be restored to life, he would probably murder somebody else: when all these things are coolly considered, I own, it is my opinion, that we had better proceed with the dissection. With these words, he plunged the knife into the breast of the culprit, and precluded at once all dread of future assassinations, or hopes of future repentance.

For the Literary Magazine.

THE WOMEN OF THE ROMANS.

IT has almost grown into an axiom, that the real civilization of a nation may be estimated by nothing more accurately than by the condition of its women. If women are respected as such, if attention be paid to their education, if the social intercourse between the sexes be liberal and frequent, it is inferred that manners have more mildness and humanity than where these appearances are wanting.

Strictly speaking, that nation, the females of which are raised to an equality with the males, must be in a better condition than another where the women are degraded, oppressed, or neglected, because the females are at least a moiety of the whole, and, consequently, the half which, in the former case, is equal to the other half, are, in the

VOL. III. NO. XX.

latter, debased into the condition of automatons and slaves. But this is not the meaning of the axiom. It is thought that the manners of the men of a nation are improved by the equality or distinction of the other sex.

I am afraid this notion has no very firm foundation in experience. At any rate, how shall we reconcile the moral, intellectual, and political refinement of the Greeks and Romans with the debased condition of their women?

The Roman notions of women may be easily collected from their celebrated writers: at least there is nothing else from which they can be collected.

The women of Plautus are almost uniformly bad. Those in Terence are little better; and the only one among them who had done a good action, begs pardon of her husband, as being convinced of her own criminality, in doing it.

"Mi Chreme, peccavi! Fateor. Vincor."

It will hardly be believed by the unclassical reader, that the fault for which the good lady begs pardon in these humble strains,

"I was wrong, my Chremes, I own

it. I am convinced of it,"

was neither more nor less than the saving her child from being murthered, as her husband and its father, had ordered.

Virgil, far from showing the least respect to the female sex, has treated them (even according to his panegyrist Dryden), in an unjust, unmanly stile. He has falsified both the æra and the character of Dido, in order to render her odious and contemptible.

He makes queen Amata turbulent and tipling, and the princess Lavinia undutiful and unbelieving. Dryden adds, "that she looks a little flickering after Turnus." His goddesses are no better than his mortals. Juno is always in a passion, and surely (as Dryden observes) Venus is too impudently

2

Unico gaudens Mulier marito.

The woman contented with one husband.

All the rest of his ladies are precisely such as are found, at this day, vagabond in streets, or permanent in brothels. They are all Chloes, Lydes, Lydias, and Cynaras. Their characters appear to have been equally light, and most of them seem to have added the worship of Bacchus to that of Cupid: that is, in plain terms, to be not only prostitutes but drunkards. He treats them accordingly, and recommends it to one of them to take care, lest her keeper, in a fit of jealousy, should spoil her fashionable cap.

One tolerably modest woman, indeed, Neobule, he seems to have known; but his notions of her delicacy do not prevent him from condoling with her on the severity of her uncle, who will neither permit her to entertain a lover, nor to wash away her cares with wine.

Juvenal need not be mentioned: he avows himself scarcely to have even heard of a modest woman since the golden age.

The prose writers of the Augustan æra seem to have favoured the sex no more than the poets; and Seneca's account of the ladies of his

time affords a no less unfavourable picture of the age.

The sentiments thus expressed or implied of women can hardly be deemed characteristic of the individuals who express them. If they are to be viewed in this light, these great geniuses, Virgil and Horace, are certainly open to great censure. What, in particular, shall we think of the morality, the taste, or the dignity of a poet who seems to know nothing of women but as they were to be found in the dram-shop and the brothel? There is, indeed, a coarseness, I was going to say brutality, in the manner in which Ho race introduces women, which is not to be found in the other amatory poets of the age. Ovid and Tibullus are occasionally vulgar and smutty, but they likewise abound with passages which show that they had known and could comprehend female delicacy, dignity, tenderness, and chastity.

For the Literary Magazine.

WITCHCRAFT.

R.

WITCHCRAFT, in the present age, is so generally exploded, that it is difficult for us to imagine by what means any part of mankind could be persuaded of its reality. To punish witchcraft, as it was formerly punished, we may be tempted to consider as the wildest impulse of prejudice and folly, and account for it merely by supposing the judge under the dominion of a blind and obstinate delusion, similar to that which governs the inhabitants of Bedlam.

And, yet, strange as it may seem, follies more palpable than this have had their strenuous champions, in every age, and among the most ingenious and enlightened of mankind. Genius does not protect men from error. It only more fatally misleads them, by supporting them in their grotesque opinions by more plausible subtleties.

It is amusing to read the learned Selden's defence of the witch act. Thus he reasons on the subject.

"The law against witches does not prove there be any, but it punishes the malice of those people that use such means to take away men's lives. If one should profess that by turning his hat thrice and crying buzz, he could take away a man's life (though in truth he could do no such thing), yet this were a just law made by the state, that whosoever should turn his hat thrice and cry buzz, with an intention to take away a man's life, shall be put to death."

For the Literary Magazine.

ALLIANCE BETWEEN POVERTY AND GENIUS.

THE truest stimulus to literary efforts, in writing, it has been long ago observed, is necessity. The most ingenious and eloquent of mortals is silent, when relieved from the necessity of writing for bread. This has been a very prevalent opinion, and yet it is either groundless, or it admits of a considerable number of exceptions.

It does not appear that Spenser, Shakespeare, or Milton wrote principally, if in any degree, for the sake of a subsistence. The same may be said of Robertson and Gibbon, the most laborious of historians. Those men had no objection to combine profit with honour, but the latter appears to have been the chief motive of their zeal and industry.

The great improvers in science, from Bacon to Priestley, have been influenced to commit their speculations to paper by other motives than mercenary ones.

If a great many authors have been poor, it does not follow, though this inference is vulgarly made, that poverty made them authors; on the contrary, it is their authorship that has made them poor. Their little regard for wealth has made them neglectful of the various ways by

which riches are amassed. What made Johnson, Goldsmith, Cowper, and Burns poor? Nothing but their indifference to riches. Had they been as deeply impressed with the value of property as the majority of mankind, there was surely no profession, liberal or mechanical, too high for their capacity.

It is true that few bright productions have flowed from the pens of enormously wealthy writers; but this is only a new proof of the blessings of mediocrity. Men can only be rich by inheritance, according to the legal phrase, or by purchase. Those that inherit wealth commonly receive an education that totally unfits them for intellectual pursuits. Those who acquire it by their own efforts must be qualified, by their taste and habits, for those professions which are followed by wealth: professions that fix the mind upon objects very different from poetical fables and scientific theories.

Besides, though the rich are seldom authors, there are other methods of displaying a literary spirit besides that of writing books. To read, reflect, enquire, by deduction or experiment, is the occupation of vast numbers who are free from the vanity of book-making. They know that there are books enough in the world, and their modesty forbids them to imagine that they can beneficially add to the number.

Poverty is far from being a spur to genius; wealth is far less unfriendly, though its influence is certainly not propitious to it. It is the middle class that produces every kind of worth in the greatest abundance. We must not look for fertility on the hill top, nor at the bottom of the glen. It is only found in the plains and intermediate slopes.

B.

For the Literary Magazine.

PASTORAL MANNERS.

THERE cannot be a stronger proof that the bulk of mankind have

had nearly the same ideas in all ages, than that Idyllium of Theocritus, adapted to modern times, by the ingenious Robert Lloyd. Whoever will take the pains of comparing the two poems, will find that the chit-chat of two Grecian women of a middling rank, the adventures they meet when in pursuit of a fine sight, their distresses, escapes, observations, and return homewards, are, with hardly any alteration, the same in Philadelphia in 1805, that they were in Egypt some hundred years before the christian era.

For the Literary Magazine.

BLUNDERS.

IGNORANCE of the ancient languages has sometimes been productive of whimsical, and sometimes of very direful mistakes.

At a period when it was a prevalent fancy, among the Italian literati, to adopt favourite names from the Greek or Latin tongues, in preference to their own original ones, Antonius Palearius chose to signalize his love of the muses by altering his first name to Aonius. A fanatic, who had taken the name of Latinus Latinius, accused him of having abandoned the appellation Antonius, merely that he might expel from his name the letter T, which represents the cross; and this charge, among others, contributed to bring him into the fangs of the inquisition, by whom he was condemned to the stake.

During the civil contests of Italy, two little towns, Brisiguella and Imola, both in the district of Bologna, were remarkably incensed against each other, although near neighbours. Those of the former place not being very great proficients in the Latin tongue, were peculiarly disgusted with the compliment which they apprehended was partially paid to their adversaries, in the daily service, "Qui

Immolatus est nobis," and with great patriotism decreed that, in lieu of this offensive passage, the priest should chant "Qui Brisiguellatus est nobis."

For the Literary Magazine.

OATHS.

NO tenet of the quakers, or friends, exposed them, in early times, to so much persecution as their scruples with respect to swearing. At this time one cannot look back, without astonishment, on the stress that was formerly laid upon an oath. The writers on these subjects would persuade us, that the principle of gravity is not more necessary to keep the universe together, than the formulary of an oath is to preserve the system of human society whole. That construction which Robert Barclay put upon the scriptural prohibition to swear was universally and promptly rejected, not only in consequence of certain principles of interpretation, but because of the social evils which must flow from admitting it: evils, as they imagined, fatal to the very foundation of the social system. Hence, with what caution and reluctance did the legislature admit the followers of Barclay to attest their sincerity by other means than an oath! And to this day, if I mistake not, nothing but an oath is listened to, by judge or jury, in all criminal cases.

I lately met with the following little incident, which, I think, illus. trates, with no small force, the principles that really govern mankind on these occasions:

The oath used among the Highlanders, in judicial proceedings, contains a most solemn denunciation of vengeance, in case of perjury, and involves the wife and children, the arable and the meadow-land, of the party who takes it, all together in an abyss of destruction. When it

is administered, there is no book to be kissed, but the right hand is held up while the oath is repeated.

A Highlander, at the Carlisle assizes, had sworn positively, in the English mode, to a fact of consequence. His indifference during that solemnity having been observed, by the opposite party, he was required to confirm his testimony by taking the oath of his own country to the same. "No, no," said the mountaineer, in the northern dialect, "ken ye not thar is a hantle 'o difference 'twixt blawing on a buke, and domming one's ain saul?"

For the Literary Magazine.

LOVE.

AMONG the various forms in which love manifests itself, it will not be easy to produce a case parallel to that of Margaret of Valois, wife of Henry IV, who accompanied the duchess of Nevers, at a very early age, on a midnight expedition to fetch from the gibbet the heads of two infamous courtiers, their gallants, Coconnas and La Motte. These they embalmed and preserved in their cabinets.

For the Literary Magazine.

SOMNAMBULISM.

A fragment.

[The following fragment will require no other preface or commentary than an extract from the Vienna Gazette of June 14, 1784. "At Great Glogau, in Silesia, the attention of physicians, and of the people, has been excited by the case of a young man, whose behaviour indicates perfect health in all respects but one. has a habit of rising in his sleep, and performing a great many actions with as much order and exactness as when awake. This habit for a long time showed itself in freaks and achieve

He

ments merely innocent, or, at least, only troublesome and inconvenient, till about six weeks ago. At that period a shocking event took place about three leagues from the town, and in the neighbourhood where the youth's family resides. A young lady, travelling with her father by night, was shot dead upon the road, by some person unknown. The officers of justice took a good deal of pains to trace the author of the crime, and at length, by carefully comparing circumstances, a suspicion was fixed upon this youth. After

an accurate scrutiny, by the tribunal of the circle, he has been declared author of the murder: but what renders the case truly extraordinary is, that there are good reasons for believing that the deed was perpetrated by the youth while asleep, and was entirely unknown to himself. The young woman was the object of his affection, and the journey in which she had engaged had given him the utmost anxiety for her safety."]

-OUR guests were preparing to retire for the night, when somebody knocked loudly at the gate. The person was immediately admitted, and presented a letter to Mr. Davis. This letter was from a friend, in which he informed our guest of certain concerns of great importance, on which the letterwriter was extremely anxious to have a personal conference with his friend; but knowing that he intended to set out from four days previous to his writing, he was hindered from setting out by the apprehension of missing him upon the way. Meanwhile, he had deemed it best to send a special message to quicken his motions, should he be able to find him.

The importance of this interview was such, that Mr. Davis declared his intention of setting out immediately. No solicitations could induce him to delay a moment. His daughter, convinced of the urgency of his motives, readily consented to brave the perils and discomforts of a nocturnal journey.

This event had not been antici